Last week the American Chemical Society announced they were sending take down notices (TDNs) to ResearchGate to remove ACS journal articles that authors have posted to ResearchGate. Here is the message ACS sent to their authors, including those at UC San Diego.

Articles that were published under ACS’ AuthorChoice with a CC-BY license are not subject to the TDNs and can be posted to ResearchGate (or reposted if taken down in error).

Here’s some background on the issues between ResearchGate and the journal publishers. ACS will not be the only publisher to send TDNs. The American Anthropological Association recently sent a letter to their members asking them to remove copies of their articles from ResearchGate and Academia.edu, adding that Wiley would be sending a TDN to ResearchGate.

We know many UC San Diego researchers use ResearchGate to collaborate and share information. However, most of the publisher agreements you sign do specify that the publisher PDF versions of articles should not be posted online.